The Cronoticals

I only got drunk once.

I was at a bar with my crowd from high school who I hadn’t seen in forever. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to how many refills I got of vodka lemonade. I don’t remember much of it, which is part of my problem. When I talked to my friends afterward, they said they had watched me leave to walk home to my apartment. No one went with me. No one checked to see if I was drunk. The next thing I knew, I woke up on a train headed for Trenton and looked down to see my forearms were newly tattooed. I screamed and promptly threw up.

A conductor came and asked what was wrong. She calmed me down and walkie talkied someone to help clean up my mess. She said that I had gotten on at 30th St. Station back in Philadelphia at 9am that morning. It was nearly 11 am when I woke up and we were minutes from Trenton. I told her that I didn’t mean to get on that train, I was sure I had been very drunk judging by the vomit and my lack of memory beyond the bar. The conductor informed me that there was not going to be another train to take me back to Philly until almost evening. She said it would be easier if a friend or family member was called then so they could come and pick me up at the station in Trenton. I called my older cousin who lived just outside of Trenton and asked if he could pick me up from the station. By that point I was sobbing. When my cousin heard what had happened, I could hear his keys jungle over the line as he said that he’d be right there.

My cousin found me at the station, weak, anxious, and still a bit shaken. He didn’t ask me much and was kind and pleasant the entire almost 2 hour drive. We caught up and he made me laugh. We stopped for Wawa a few times. It was great until we were almost at my apartment and he asked about the tattoos. I remember almost completely relapsing, but I managed to keep my pumpkin spice latte and hoagie in my stomach.

“I ….woke up with them… on the train,” I explained. “I don’t remember getting them.”

“I mean they’re cool, don’t get me wrong, Ariel,” he said. “You know I have a few.”

I was just so confused about how they got there and all a sudden I just became chill with the fact that the tattoos were there. I was still skeptical, however. “About that, aren’t tattoos supposed to be covered after. And, I don’t know, hurt?” I asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“It wasn’t there yesterday, it’s not covered, and it doesn’t hurt,” I answer. For a second the acid bubbled up in my throat, but I managed to keep my food down.

“Yeah. That is weird,” my cousin said. “Maybe it’s just a temporary airbrush tattoo?”

“Maybe…” I mumbled. “I hope so…”

My cousin dropped me off at my apartment and then we parted ways. I tried to live my life and forget about that experience. I went to school, I worked my butt off programming to keep my apartment, I made sure I ate food and socialized. I wouldn’t talk about that experience much to anyone, but I would think about it, especially when the tattoos didn’t go away after a few months. I look at them in the mirror now and then, in my tank top. The phases of the moon wrap in a spiral up my arms. A full moon marks my elbows and the base of my neck. Ever since I would get reoccurring 'dreams' that I woke up and started my day, then would wake up again in 'real life'. I also noticed that I could understand other languages and be understood by non native English speakers. I would lie awake at night wondering how the tattoos got there. I tried to wrack my brain to remember when my last drink even was, but I still had a gap in my memory between the bar and waking up on the train.

A few months later my college roommates and I took a trip to Greece after graduation. I thought it was neat to be the interpreter of the group. I didn't really start questioning how I was understanding other languages until I was fully immersed into crowds of people who I knew for a fact were not English speakers. My friends told me that I would continue talking in Greek to them sometimes and I would figure out how to revert back to English. We had an amazing time and I will never forget that week until the day I die. We rented a seaside condo, saw a ton of sights and it was just amazing. On the last night before we were going to fly back to the US, I took a walk on the beach by myself. I thought about the entire week and the events and longed to experience the week over again. Closing my eyes I took a deep breath.

I opened my eyes and I was walking through the door of the condo with my friends for the first time again. It was surreal. I was also freaking out inside, but I was grateful to be able to experience the week over again. I decided not to change a thing about it, other than read more at the historical sights and was a lot more laid back. But I couldn’t say that I didn’t think a lot about the fact that I had possibly time traveled. Any moment I already had alone, I tried to see if I could time travel again. I found that I could do it again, but it took a lot of consideration. I learned how to go backward and foreword in time, just by going a few seconds one way or another. I noticed after practicing a while, that my tattoos hurt and burned. I would take that as a time to stop.

I walked along the beach again, the night before we had to leave and fly back to the US. I wasn’t thinking about wanting to relive the week, however; I was thinking about the Ancient Greeks I had been reading about. I wondered how amazing it would have been to see the structures and meet the ancient people in person. I had so many questions and longed to see everything in it's prime. I looked out over the dark ocean and closed my eyes. Then my tattoos started to burn badly. When I opened my eyes, I was on the same beach, but…. not.

The only light came from the moon. Everything else was dark. I couldn’t believe what happened- again, because if I went too far backward in time, I didn’t know if I could go forward enough, back to my original time. I didn’t know how long it will be until my tattoos would stop burning and I would even begin to start time traveling again either. I didn’t know when I was and worse than that, I could speak and understand modern Greek, but would I be able to understand Ancient Greek? Everything was basically dark and I could not see any people or homes, from whom I could ask for help. I panicked for a while. All I had was the white sundress I was wearing all day. Eventually I decided it was best to just lie down on a grassy hill overlooking the beach and go to sleep, because it was late and I figured it may have been a dream anyway.

I woke up in a red couch, in the center of a marble room lined with columns, fuming with incense. The room was dimly lit with pans of fire on pedestals. My tattoos had stopped throbbing, but now they hurt like bruises when I touched them. I looked down to find that my left ankle was bandaged. I looked around and saw a knife, a bowl and a cloth stained red hanging off of it, in front of a statue of a women. I made myself get up and look in the bowl. I suspected, given the knife and my bandaged ankle, it was my own blood. I wondered what it would have been used for, and why they let me live. Either way I needed to get out of, what I presumed was a temple, and try and go back to my time. I don't know what possessed me, but I took the bowl with me before I made a break to figure out a way out of the temple.

Temple guards and priests saw me and lead chase. I slipped in a corridor and dumped the contents of the bowl all over the stone floor. In panic, I tried to time travel forward, but ended up only five minuets in the future, right in the middle of a group of priests and guards, who restrained me and dragged me to a smaller room. I was forced into a backed wooden chair and tied down.

I demanded to know what they were doing with me.

"We need your blood. That's all. Then you can go," said one of the priests.

"Why?" I asked.

No one answered, no matter how much I demanded to know what was happening. I squirmed, but the men held my leg steady and removed the bandage and the stitches. My leg felt like it was on fire and I screamed the entire time. I am not one to usually be a drama queen, but to be fair I had a good reason. After a few minuets with my ankle over the bowl, a priest took it away. After they had finished and sewn and bandaged me up, I was untied. I was half dragged to the center room of the temple, where I was once again sat on the red couch, fed and given something to drink, both of which I almost threw up, due to blood loss. As I sat and was half force fed by a priest, who kept telling me 'not to die', I watched the priest that had the bowl pour some on the statue and then gave the bowl to a young man next to him. The man took the bowl and drank it and I just stared.

"Eat, I beg you! Don't die! Not now," said the priest again.

"Why?" I snapped.

"Selene will kill us all," he answered with concern.

"Who is Selene and why would she kill you?" I asked.

The priest tried to get me to eat more, as I watched the man who drank out of the bowl be given a cloak and leave the room.

I refused. "Answer my questions."

The priest nervously looked around him. I noticed he looked younger than the rest of the priests. He looked about my age, 22, but maybe younger? He finally answered me, "You have been marked by the moon titan, Selene. We don't know why, if that's your next question. But the blood of those marked by Selene can make others immortal."

"But I don't get to be immortal?" I ask, slightly insulted.

"We don't really know if you are or aren't. There was a time like this where a man was marked and he was killed for his blood. In rage Selene slayed the killers and all accomplices."

"Wait, then how do you know that my blood will make that guy immortal?" I asked, mentioning the man who drank from the bowl.

The priest sheepishly answered, "Well, I... I really don't know."

After an hour or two, I was well enough to walk, but the tattoos still hurt. The priests fed me another meal and let me spend the night. I was awoken in the dead of night, by a glowing woman in silver.

I looked at her and the statue, "I guess you're Selene?"

"That is correct and I need you to help me with something," said the titan.

"What can I possibly help you with? You can give an intoxicated girl magical powers, without consent by the way, but, no, you need me to do things for you," I tell Selene strait up.

"You have been through a lot, I see that. I also wish to inform you that I do not know you yet," said the titan as she took a bright sword and scabbard from her dress. "I need you to take this sword and gash the man who stole your blood. If he dies, then you are stuck here, but if he survives, then you can live and go where and when you please until you are needed again."

Selene handed the sword to me.

"If I don't gash the guy, do I still get to go home?" I asked looking up at her.

“No,” she answered. “If you do not strike the man who took your blood, I will make sure you don’t leave.”

I looked at the titan, then at the sword in my hands. Looking back up, I said, “I’ll go. Where is that guy?”

The titan helped me out of the temple, but did not in fact know where the man was. It started to rain as I wandered the dark streets. I decided to go back to Selene’s temple, then realized I had no idea where I was. I walked up to another traveler on the road to ask where he was going and if there was an inn maybe. The guy literally jumped upon seeing me. It took me a few moments, but I recognized the man from the temple, through the dimly lit morning. He saw the sword in its scabbard.

“I am not looking for a fight,” he backed away.

I answered, "Neither am I." I walked closer to him, thinking fast. "Selene, she told me to give you this," I pulled out the glowing sword.

The man's eyes widened and came closer, as he put his hands out to take the blade. I quickly swung the sword like a baseball bat into the guy's upper right arm, then ran. I never thought my soft ball skills would ever come in handy, but they did that day. The man laid chase and I struggled to keep out of his reach on the dark muddy roads. Pain to shot up my leg from my ankle as I pounded to stay out of his reach. The sword I was carrying was not making anything easier. The man chased me until I found an ally. I slipped in and he ran right past. For a moment I could breath and sheath the heavy sword. I thought of the beach, or rather before I went outside to walk along the shore. I desired it more than ever, now. I opened my eyes to the living room of the condo, where I was right before I went to walk on the beach.

"You going out?" my friend asked.

I looked out the door, then closed it. "No, I was just breathing in the air," I answered. No one saw the sword or noticed my ankle, because I concealed them in my dress. I changed into pajamas and was able to get some real sleep. The next morning, my friends and I packed up and left to go back home. Somehow the sword never got detected or flagged by the metal detectors.

I felt dead by the time I got back to my apartment. I flopped on the couch. For a few moments everything was quiet, then there was a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"You know who it is, Ariel," answered a man.

"No I don't believe I do," I yell through the door.

"I still want the sword," the man calls back.

"I was told it was mine actually," I answered slightly confused.

"So you lied to me?"

"I thought it was obvious."

"Can I come in?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I am smarter than to let a strange man into my house. I don't even know your name," I answered.

"Oh, well that changes every couple decades," he said.

"What is it now?" I ask.

"It's Theo."

"Oh, cool. Go away, Theo," I said.

"What?"

"I said go away. If you don't I'll call security on you."

I could hear the immortal sigh on the other side of the door, "Alright... Some other day."

Or never, I thought. As I heard Theo's footsteps get farther away.